Activists protest war simulator

PHILADELPHIA — Located across from an indoor skateboarding park in a Northeast Philadelphia outlet mall, the Army Experience Center includes a computer lab that showcases careers as well as the kind of interactive simulators that are irresistible to its target market: the teenage boys recruiters hope will fuel the Army of the future.

One simulator is a model Humvee in which a handful of people can pick up model M-16 rifles and play an interactive video game that simulates a real battle in Iraq or rounding up illegal immigrants who have just crossed the border from Mexico. There’s also a model Apache helicopter.

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To 300 anti-war protesters who showed up here last weekend, shouting, “Shut it down, shut it down!” the games and the theme park are simply tools in marketing death to children — with taxpayer dollars — in service of wars the activists oppose in Iraq and Afghanistan. To members of a veterans group called Gathering of Eagles, who confronted the protesters, it’s not possible to support the troops without supporting the wars they fight.

During the election, President Barack Obama soothed voters who demanded national security by promising to continue fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan while bringing the troops home from Iraq. But now Obama and his advisers are weighing whether to commit more troops to Afghanistan, and the military has a more practical concern about the strain that fighting two wars will have on the troops.

Recruiting is one way to ease the strain, and that’s why places like the Army Experience Center are likely to become new flash points in what could be an increasingly vocal debate.

Even if the economic crisis has eased recruiting concerns somewhat by making the Army more attractive to unemployed youths, the Army competes with businesses and colleges for about 25 percent of 17-to-24-year-olds. The remaining 75 percent aren’t the kind of people the Army wants: They’re usually not recruitable because they lack a diploma, weigh too much or have a criminal past, according to Saif Khan, the deputy director of Mission: Readiness, an organization that promotes early childhood education to expand the future recruiting base.

The Army Experience Center was conceived in 2007, when the Army was under such pressure to increase its ranks for surge forces into Iraq that it was granting waivers for recruits who lacked a diploma or who’d committed crimes, even felonies.

To capture the highly competitive demographic, the Army contracted with the “marketing innovations” firm IgnitedUSA, which touts the Experience Center’s success in capturing national media coverage.

The center, which cost $12 million to design and build and has an annual budget of $5 million, is a sort of marketing lab to test techniques for recruiting teenagers for service. It has no official recruiting mission but stands ready to sign up people who want to join, according to the Army. IgnitedUSA spokeswoman Amy Lindstrom said the center has signed up 141 recruits since opening a year ago.

“In a time of unpopular wars, negative press and falling recruitment rates, the U.S. Army needed an unconventional, dynamic and results-oriented way to engage a new generation in a conversation,” IgnitedUSA’s promotional materials said. “The AEC is where that conversation takes place.”